[MANSFIELD, OHIO,
August 29, 1865.]
I am very desirous to accept your invitation. The trip would
be an instructive and pleasant one, and if I was not restrained by the
interests of others I would surely go at once. But we are now involved in an
exciting and important political contest. The canvass in Ohio is substantially
between the Government and the Rebellion, and is assuming all the bitterness of
such a strife. If I should leave now, it would be like a general leaving before
the day of battle. I have been speaking very often, and must keep it up. I
propose, however, to arrange all my business so that I may leave soon after the
election, say about the 20th of October, and will then go down the river and
spend all the time until the meeting of Congress. I hope to be able to go via
Vicksburg, New Orleans, Charleston, to Washington. If a favorable opportunity
offers at Vicksburg or New Orleans, I wish to develop my ideas as to a
reconstruction of the Union. I know these will suit you a good deal better than
they will the Administration, but I feel quite independent of the latter, and
am disposed to follow my own course. . . .
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The
Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837
to 1891, p. 254-5
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